Thanking The Stone Throwers and Road Barricaders

While totally leaving out the panga wielding head and limb decapitators, looters of radios and bread, title deeded land displacers, arsonists and everyone else who aimed a rock at anyone else other than the riot police or military, I too think it's about time we thank and congratulate the thousands of Kenyans who jammed the streets in protest of the stolen vote.

Were it not for these aggrieved folks who take their vote very seriously, we would be living in greater agony and misery today. While we cannot yet tell whether their sacrifices will bare true fruits of change, we must continue to tip our hats to them every time we pass them on the streets. Yes fellas, that's where they still are, on the streets; jobless, disillusioned and anxiously waiting for expeditious change.

When some of you thought the poll date was a public holiday for eating roasted poultry, some jobless fella from Kariobangi was sweating profusely while queuing under the sun waiting to exercise his most important democratic right.

When some of you crawled under your mahogany king sized beds at the sound of a gun shot, a hungry warrior of democracy from Kibera was hauling a fist sized rock at the protectors of the status quo i.e. the police.

When some of you sat on plush comfortable sofa sets watching with glee as Kibaki stole the vote on HD TV, some hapless jamaa was receiving a thorough thrashing by GSU officers on the very grounds of KICC under the cover of darkness brought about by a very convenient power blackout.

When some of you, secure in foreign lands, shed crocodile tears to appease yourselves, some youngsters were busy tearing down the railway lines that feed Uganda, a country led by a supporter of despots.

You see, civil disobedience and public expression of anger at political excesses are some of the cornerstones of democracy. Kenyans must be free to shout their lungs out and vent until their heads explode…at every opportunity. Violence and anarchy directed at fellow citizens solely because of their opposing political persuasion must be discouraged by all means, however, it must be encouraged if directed towards emerging despotic regimes conjured up in the lush backyard of one big white house on State House Road. To say no to such wild backyard shenanigans safeguards the legacy of all those who sacrificed their lives for a better Kenya. Yes folks, Kenya does have heroes. To have accepted the topping up of vote results at KICC without throwing a few stones here and there would have confined their deaths to vain.

I know most of you subscribe to the peaceful principals of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King…but truth be told, even the Dalai Lama himself could have caught a bullet in the corridors of State House during those tumultuous weeks. We all witnessed the shabby treatment meted out on some international visitors of goodwill. The creativity of some phrases used to terrify the ambassadors of peace still baffles me today. People like Desmond Tutu technically fled the country vowing never to return. Now, here's a man of God who's been running away from apartheid's rubber bullets for many years... only to visit Kenya in peace and be forced to sprint past the JKIA terminals like a cat on fire towards his emergency one way flight back to South Africa. Wasn't peace given a chance?

The frankness of the matter is that violence eventually breeds peace. Whether or not this is the type of peace we envisioned is a debate for another day. At times it feels like some of our warriors of democracy died so that a few monkeys can become ministers.

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